REDLANDS – Redlands Unified School District Board of Education members took a break from discussing budget cuts to talk about curriculum this week.

During Tuesday’s board meeting, district Director of Curriculum and Instruction Sue Buster updated those present on the Alternative Core Curriculum currently in place for English Language Arts students in grades four and five.

“We are very pleased to let you know we are very happy with the results we’ve received so far,” Buster said. “We have been fortunate to have student achievement increasing each year at the elementary level. Over time, we have had steady increases in our English language arts achievement.”

Since implementation of the program in 2004, the total percentage of proficient fourth-grade students in the district has increased from 43 percent to 65 percent. For fifth-graders, proficiency has increased from 46 to 61 percent.

These increases may be due to the Alternative Core Curriculum.

“We have over 318 students participating in Alternative Core at the 15 sites, and of those 318, over 54 percent are accelerating more than one year’s growth,” Buster said. “This just shows you where they were in 2008 and where they are in 2009.”

The district implemented the Alternative Core program to help fourth- and fifth-grade students who fall behind, Buster said.

“We’re addressing the needs of any fourth- or fifth- grade student who falls two or more years behind in learning,” Buster said. “We’re looking to accelerate their learning to catch their minds. These students can come from the full general education population, (English language learners), or special education students. It’s anyone who we think is going to match that style of teaching. It’s a pretty rapid style of teaching.”

Buster said when the program is implemented properly and with dedication, improvements of up to one or two years can be made in one year, Buster said.

In the future, the district may implement the program in other grades, particularly in the lower grades to intervene before students fall too far behind.

“We know that early intervention is the key,” Buster said. “Unfortunately, (Alternative Core is) based on the concept of `wait and fail’ because you can’t be in kindergarten and be two years behind. It’s designed to be something where we’re intervening as early as possible and in those days, it was fourth grade. Now we know we want to do that earlier.”

Following the presentation, district Superintendent Lori Rhodes briefly spoke about the budget, during her regular legislative update.

“One of the things that (the governor’s) proposal indicates is that we can’t lose a whole lot of education money in theory, because we accepted federal stimulus money and there is a cap on that,” Rhodes said.

Schwarzenegger is requesting that restriction be altered, Rhodes said.

“His proposal, that he submitted to the federal government, would allow for there to be a retroactive recalculation of that which would actually cause a 600 million dollar further reduction to the education budget,” Rhodes said. “They’re stating that they’re giving education the same amount of money, but they’re not. It’s overinflated.”

As far as what Redlands Unified would have to cut in addition to the $11.68 million board members cut during the last meeting, there is no answer yet. Districts across the state remain in limbo.

“There’s really not much new,” said Board Member Pat Kohlmeier. “It’s the uncertainty that has everyone so concerned, because we know that there’s no money. The question is `can the governor do it? Can the legislature do it? If they can, how are they going to do it?”‘

Kohlmeier reiterated a call for parents and community members to contact Sacramento with their concerns.

“The bottom line is that the governor can’t do this unilaterally,” Kohlmeier said. “He needs the legislature to go along with it. We really have our work cut out for us in making sure that our local legislators understand the cuts that we’re looking at.”

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